Tag Archives: dips

^^ A sentence many a man has said over the years and continues to say to this day.

“I want to be lean and strong”

^^ Something I’m pleased to announce more women are saying, it seems there has been a shift in them saying ‘I just want to be skinny’ to now learning the benefit of being lean and strong, it’s great to see.

While it is only my opinion, I feel everybody should be strong.

I’m not talking about record breaking strong, just strong enough to stay healthy and stave off the effects of ageing on the body.

These sports all centre around lifting:

– Weightlifting (olympic lifting)

– Body Building

– Powerlifting

– Strongman

– CrossFit (some may not like this one)

Did you know lifting weights can have the following positive effects on the body:

Personally I’d say the mental improvement is the pivotal one as this can have the biggest impact on a persons life in a very positive way.

However….

If you’re not an athlete and lift for health/confidence you should do it because you enjoy it, not because you feel you have to, that’s the secret to balance and long term sustainability.

Don’t eat yourself up if you miss a session, chalk it up to life and sue it as a rest day, that way you’ll be more motivated when you get to go in, excited to train in fact. Keep this in mind and you’ll find you don’t fall out of love with training.

What if lifting isn’t for you?

That’s cool, find soothing you do enjoy, here are some other options for improving strength and all achieving all the other benefits mentioned above:

There are two upper body exercises that will not only help you fill out a t-shirt but also build some impressive strength too.

The best part about these exercises is they work brilliantly for the ladies too. They will help you achieve those lean looking arms and sculpted back you desire.

What exercises do I mean?

The Dip & The Pull/Chin Up (pull ups hit more back, chin ups hit more biceps)

These are the upper body equivalent to the Squat & the Deadlift, or so some people say anyway.

Being able to perform a strict set of 25 dips & 12 pull ups (woman) and 50 dips with 25 pull ups (men) won’t just make you impressively strong, it will also help build your confidence and add some sought after lean muscle to your frame.

It is true that people will add weight to these exercises to help overload but personally I would advise hitting the numbers above with good form before you venture in to the realms of adding weight to the exercise.

For both men and woman focusing on mastering these bodyweight movements and increasing the reps until they have hit the desired numbers is the first and most important goal.

But what if you can’t do more than a few of each?

Fear not. There is a great method that will help you build up your reps and get stronger, the best part is because of the volume loading it can be done daily.

What is this miraculous method?

Ladder Training.

You simply do one rep of each exercise. The two, followed by 3, basically adding a rep for each successfully completed set of reps for each exercise. Once you fail start again at one.

This style of training has been proven over the years as a great way of adding strength and building lean muscle.

If you can take your ladder from 1 to 10 then you’re not he right path, you might then want to start working for unbroken ladder reps up to 15 or even 20! By doing this you will find you ability to crank out 25-50 dips in one set isn’t an issue. the same is true for pull/chin ups.

Now go and get practising.

*Please note that if you can’t do one of either then the use of resistance bands to assist you or an assistance machine is permitted.